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GRAMOPHONE (12/2024)
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Arcana  A567

Code barres / Barcode : 3760195735671
 

Reviewer : Jonathan Freeman-Attwood

As the final example in Bach’s life of what Christoph Wolff describes as ‘methodically organised works of exemplary status as paradigms of his musical art’, the Mass in B minor presents performers with especially interesting challenges. Without the obvious events that mark the Passions, the Ordinary of the Mass explores its narratives within a liturgical ritual, a compendium of set pieces that generates an arc of totality of almost inconceivable richness but with comparatively limited signposts. We don’t know whether Bach ever considered a complete performance in any conceptual or practical sense (apart from the movements included in the Missa of 1733), and modern accounts of the Mass have tended to surf the wave, often in the form of an adrenalincharged celebration of high-level execution and inexorable momentum.

One of many refreshing attributes about this engaging and fluent reading is that Andrea Marcon has managed to etch the lines in a series of unhurried and considered tableaux, starting with an ineluctable trinity of Kyrie movements. The organic growth of supplication towards a beautifully ‘told’ Gloria, rejoicing in the sinewy links between vocal and instrumental characters and the shimmering textures of ‘Et in terra pax’ brought me up short (for all the obvious current reasons). Balancing musicological common sense, especially in how soloists and ripienists interact across all the various canvases of the Mass, with creative instinct is one of the strongest virtues of this new recording.

There is a natural ease with which the soloists face their responsibilities in those hybrid movements – of which the thrilling ‘Cum Sancto Spiritu’ and the ‘Confiteor’ are among the most imaginative examples here – with both delicate filigree and epic corporate representations. Only occasionally do the solo voices appear disorientated. Hana Bla?íková’s ‘Laudamus te’ feels a touch low for her, and Carlos Mena’s ripe countertenor is not always the easiest to blend, but these are minor distractions alongside Marcon’s remarkable capacity for attention to detail. A telling example is the ‘Domine Deus’, where the clearest definition of words within the tactile contrapuntal web of the solo flute and strings is underpinned by a deliciously supple lute-inflected continuo, and with exceptionally well-judged rubato. These are the kinds of perceptions that can rekindle a work too regularly projected on the back of well-worn performance tropes.

La Cetra’s interrogation of this score is often conceived, unusually, from the solar plexus outwards: the bassoons burst from the seams from within the heart of the score in the most visceral of ‘Quoniams’, and the organ provides a glorious timbral affirmation to the opening chant of the ‘Credo’, intoned with deliberate edge and not a scintilla of vibrato to cloud the antiquated ‘species’ counterpoint. Marcon is careful not to force the sound, overproject the trumpet-led choruses in the latter stages or indeed parade ensemble virtuosity for its own sake. Variety and cohesion come in many forms in the B minor Mass and such awareness finds additional benefit here in movements where the brakes are applied. How radiant is the stately andante afforded to the ‘Et in unum Dominum’, so colourful and imploring, and which offers, by contrast, the perfect advance foil for a marmoreal

‘Et incarnatus’ and a fashionably uncomfortable ‘Crucifixus’. This may not be the recording with the most starry singers nor offer a reference point of studio perfection in homogeneity and refinement, but it is as thoughtful and integrated a reading as I’ve heard for several years, and probably since Lars Ulrik Mortensen’s searching account of 2015.

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